


of you and me

by brattyloser



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Middle School, F/F, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-12 03:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2094354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brattyloser/pseuds/brattyloser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The life cycle of a relationship is a funny thing. Take Ray and Michael for example: they somehow progress from classmates to friends to best friends to boyfriends to quite possibly none of the above.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. [past] it obvious that I’m lovesick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray falls head over heels in love with the boy who sits in front of him in History. The boy who doesn't even know his name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's my contribution to the Ragehappy Big Bang, which was quite the experience and an interesting few months.
> 
> Also tumblr user montes-carpatus is a goddamn saint for putting up with my bullshit through all of this.

Ray didn’t know it was possible to fall in love with the back of someone’s head until he was twelve and sat down in History class on the first day of school. In front of him sat a boy with a head full of curls that looped in delicate swirls all the way down to the back of a neck littered with freckles. Ray had never seen this kid before. Or at least, he had never seen the back of this kid’s head before.

The bell rang, signaling the beginning of class, and the teacher began roll call. She didn’t even make it halfway through the list before she spoke his name:

Michael Jones.

It was the most beautiful name Ray had ever heard in his life. When Michael raised his hand and said “present” with the voice of a goddamn angel, Ray gripped his pencil so hard it nearly splintered between his fingers and he felt his face heat up. He was so focused on replaying the sound of that voice in his head over and over again that he nearly missed hearing the teacher call his own name. Ray answered quickly and his own voice cracked terribly, but the snickers of his classmates didn’t even faze him because Ray was too busy planning out how to start a conversation with _Michael Jones_.

Now, Ray was not known for his tact. At all. He was quiet for the most part, but once you got to know him, got past that initial shy barrier, the kid became a real chatterbox. And while Ray’s mother called him “plainspoken” while she patted his head and told him to think before he spoke, everyone else called him what he was: annoying. And Michael was about to learn that firsthand.

The first time Ray spoke to Michael was on the third day of class when they were paired up together to work on an inane worksheet the teacher had assigned. Ray didn’t even look at the paper in front of him, he propped his chin in his hands, bit back a sigh and said “hi”. He had been working on the perfect opening line for the better part of fifteen minutes and that was the best he had come up with. He thought it was brilliant.

Michael just said hi back and immediately set to work on their assignment.

Ray took a moment to watch the way Michael’s curls fell over his eyes and wondered what color their children’s hair would be.

“I’m Ray,” he said, still staring dreamily at his partner’s hunched form.

Michael grunted and scribbled something on his paper, “Michael.” He sat up straight and scratched his head with the eraser end of his pencil, “Hey, you got an answer for number 4?” His eyes were still on the sheet in front of him and Ray wanted to count the frown lines on his face.

“Nope,” Ray hadn’t even started his worksheet yet. He didn’t even know what they were supposed to be doing because he had stopped paying attention after he learned he was being partnered with the greatest boy in the world. “Wanna hear something cool though?”

Michael finally looked up and Ray tried not to drown in his gaze, “Depends, is it more interesting than this shit?”

Ray nodded. He’d do anything to keep those beautiful eyes focused on him. So Ray started talking. He told Michael about the time he tried to jump from the fire escape outside of his bedroom window to the balcony next door only to screw it up and break his elbow so bad that the bone jutted out at a weird angle. Ray told him about how they had to go to the ER and when the doctor set his arm, he didn’t even cry. That was a big fat lie because Ray definitely screamed for a good twenty minutes, but what was a little white lie when Michael’s face lit up the way it did as he asked to see the scar?

The bell rang to signal the end of class and they got no work done but Ray figured it was worth it. He had gotten to talk to Michael Jones and had even made the guy laugh, and that was worth more than some dumb classwork grade.

After that conversation, Ray tried to talk to Michael every chance he got. He was probably being really obnoxious about it, always in Michael’s face and telling him elaborate stories that may or may not have been true, but it was just because he wanted Michael to think he was cool, to think that Ray was worth his time.

When Ray wasn’t talking _to_ Michael, he was talking to other people _about_ Michael. It had gotten to the point that his family and his friends kept telling him to shut up about it as they tried to change the subject.

“Didn’t anything else happen today, Ray?” His mother would ask with a strained smile, “Something…not about Michael?” Ray would put a hand to his chin and think about it, actually think about it, but his efforts would come up nil. Anything that happened that day was absolutely nothing compared to Michael.

“So when are you guys getting married?” Miles giggled from behind his book once while they were supposed to be studying in the library. “Spring, right? Am I invited?” Ray threw his highlighter at Miles’s head and told him to shut up. They would have a fall wedding, obviously.

“Can’t we talk about something else for once?” Kerry whined during lunch one afternoon. He made a volcano out of his mashed potatoes and watched peas and gravy roll down the sides. “Can’t lunchtime be a Michael-free zone or something?” There was no such thing as a Michael-free zone as far as Ray was concerned. He had a great big crush on the guy and he would obsess over him however he so chose.

Ray drew hearts on the front of his trapper keeper. He scribbled their initials in the margins of his papers. He wrote Michael’s name in bubble letters and borrowed Barbara’s gel pens to make the whole thing as bright and happy as Michael made him feel. He wrote a poem. Well, he wrote several poems, but there was one that was his favorite. The one that compared Michael’s freckles to stars and spanned the two pages where his math notes should have been.

Ray even dreamed about Michael. He daydreamed about him in every other class besides the one they had together – the one time when conversations became less _about_ Michael and more about how Ray could _impress_ Michael – and the daydreams sometimes got…intense. There was one scenario where Ray was Batman and Michael was Superman that he was particularly fond of and would replay in his head constantly. Thinking about Michael in spandex was way more interesting than learning about cognates and introduction paragraphs.

Ray once spent an entire night trying to smash their names together in some sort of cute portmanteau, but the results were hardly successful. It was really difficult when Ray’s first name was only three letters. He eventually settled on scrawling “Ray Narvaez Jones” in scratchy handwriting on a blank page in his notebook. He liked the way it looked. His initials would still be the same, but now the “J” stood for something cooler, something _better_. He wrote the name a few more times for good measure. He drew a heart where the “o” was meant to be.

Yeah, definitely better.

He penned in a few more hearts and, after rifling through his desk and finding some stray markers, decorated every inch of white space on the page. He went to bed that night with a smile on his face and Technicolor dreams of perfect relationships and happy endings.

Ray completely forgot about the doodles the next day; he had spent so many days and nights scribbling on spare pages that the actions sort of blurred together. His own love-induced forgetfulness came back to bite him in the butt when he lent his notebook to a classmate to compare notes.

They were standing in the hall when the guy, Kevin, flipped to the page that Ray spent so hard working on the previous night. Bright red hearts and colorful block letters beamed up from the paper. Kevin stared at the page for a while with a weird look while Ray internally panicked. He thought about reaching out and snatching the book away, laughing it off as some joke, but his hands wouldn’t move and his mouth didn’t work.

“Uh,” He tried.

“The hell is this?” The kid asked, looking up at Ray.

Ray was wide eyed and suddenly realized that his crush on Michael was seconds away from getting him beaten up in the hallway. He reached for the notebook, “It’s nothing, give it back.” Kevin lifted the book out of his reach and damn puberty for taking its sweet time when it came to Ray. He leaned up on his toes and tried to go for the notebook again, “Give it back, man. If you don’t want to use my notes, fine. Just give it back.”

Kevin placed his hand on Ray’s forehead and shoved him aside. Ray stumbled back. He readjusted his hold on the books in his arms and glared. The boy was flipping through the other pages of the notebook and, oh God no, Ray really hadn’t planned for this. It was when he got to the last few pages that Kevin’s eyes lit up like he’d won the lottery.

“Oh check this out! Is this poetry? Oh shit, little Ray’s got the hots for the Jones kid!”

And then he started reading Ray’s writing aloud and it was probably the worst moment of Ray’s young life. “Dude, stop! Give it back!” Ray moved for the notebook again.

He didn’t even know when Kevin’s friends flanked him, but Ray’s books were knocked out of his arms as he was shoved against a wall. Pinned by two kids nearly twice his size, he could only watch on in horror as his shitty poetic about his huge raging boner for Michael Vincent Jones was being read in a weird falsetto voice in the middle of the hallway.

“With a voice like honey and a laugh just as sweet, I swear I hear bells chime whenever he speaks,” Kevin swooned and sighed dreamily before he continued reading, “He's a clear summer night in the middle of June, when the world falls silent to watch beauty bloom.”

Ray was trying not to cry, because crying would only make it worse, but his voice cracked every time he yelled at Kevin to stop.

Kevin plowed on, wicked smile spreading across his face as he moved on to the next stanza, “Sometimes I wonder in the middle of the night, how his bright red lips would feel against mine.”

It was right before he reached the juicy part – the verse about trembling hands and heated breaths – that everything stopped. The notebook was plucked from Kevin’s hands and the recital abruptly ended. Kevin stared at his now empty hands, blinked once, twice before looking around to figure out what just happened.

Michael was standing there with Ray’s notebook and gave Kevin a stern look. “What the fuck are you doing, Kev? Bullying some kid?” Kevin stood there open-mouthed and Michael didn’t wait for an answer as he flipped through the notebook. Ray’s face couldn’t possibly get any redder. When Michael got to the page with the hearts and the names, he tilted his head and looked up at Ray. He walked over, closing the notebook with a snap. “Ray, right? You sit behind me in History?” Ray felt himself being lowered to the ground as the two bullies let go. He nodded slowly. Michael smiled and angels sang. He handed Ray his notebook back. “You’re the Chatty Cathy with the shitton of stories.”

Ray nodded again and accepted the notebook. It was warm where Michael’s fingers were. Michael bent down and began to pick up the scattered books. “I can walk you to homeroom so these assholes leave you alone.” He picked up the last book with a grunt, shifted them in his arms, and looked at Ray with a raised eyebrow.

Ray could only nod once more; damn his tongue for quitting on him now. They walked to Ray’s classroom and nothing felt real because Michael Jones was walking Ray to class and carrying his books for him and this would have been so much more perfect if Michael hadn’t seen the tangible embarrassment scrawled across the pages of Ray’s notebook.

When they arrived at the correct room, Michael handed Ray his books back. Ray took them with fumbling hands. Michael leaned against the doorway and crossed his arms. His face was serious and Ray feared that his heart was about to be broken.

“Look,” Michael started and, yep, that was the sound of glass shattering in Ray’s ears, “You’re a sweet kid. Really. But I don’t really…swing that way. So, uh,” Ray pushed up his glasses, hands shaking so badly that he accidentally rubbed a greasy finger to the lens. If Michael didn’t ever want to talk to him, he would totally understand. Michael sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, “We could still be friends though I guess.”

Ray nearly dropped his books right then and there. Surely he wasn’t hearing that right. “You serious?”

Michael shrugged. He pushed himself off the wall, “Yeah, I mean as long as you just cut that out,” he gestured to the notebook, “We’re cool.”

Ray nodded furiously; his smudged glasses nearly fell off his face. He could do that. That was small potatoes to being able to call Michael a friend. Yeah. He could do that. No problem.

Michael chuckled and ruffled Ray’s hair. Ray was sure his heart was going to burst right out of his chest. “Cool. See you in class then.”

Ray stood in the doorway, books pulled close to his chest and bells ringing in his ears. Michael Jones was his friend, and while that wasn’t as good as husband, it was a start.

That afternoon in History, Michael actually turned around and initiated a conversation with Ray. It was the highlight of Ray’s week and totally made up for that mess of a morning. Ray didn’t even remember what the conversation was about, he was too busy watching Michael’s rosy lips curve into a smile as he talked.

Later, when Ray got home, he ripped out every heart riddled and initials strewn page from his school notebooks and shoved them all in a box. The notebooks dedicated to his poetry got thrown in right along with them. Every trace of his raging crush on Michael Jones was stuffed into a small cardboard box that Ray taped up and shoved under his bed. Yeah it sucked that he would probably never get to kiss Michael, but being his friend was going to be so much better because at least he talked to Ray with something resembling enthusiasm now. One day the fluttering in his chest would stop, right?

The house phone rang just as Ray crawled out from under his bed, the box crammed in some faraway corner. His mother called him into the kitchen; the phone was for him. It was Michael. Ray raced to the kitchen and scrambled to answer it, nearly barreling his mother over in the process. She shook her head with a smile as he pressed the receiver to his ear.

“Hello?” He hoped he didn’t sound too out of breath.

“Hey, Ray?” Michael sounded nervous, like he wasn’t sure he had the right number. Ray hadn’t thought Michael was serious when he had asked for his phone number after class. “You free on Friday?”

Ray whirled around and looked at the calendar on the fridge. Friday was wide open, not a single note jotted on the day. “Yeah. Why?”

“Wanna come to my place and play video games? You said you game right?”

Ray nodded, forgetting that Michael couldn’t see him, “Yeah!” He winced and realized he should probably play it cool. He twirled the phone cord around his fingers. “Yes, I mean. Yes to both. Gaming’s cool. Gaming sounds good.”

“Cool,” Michael said.

“Cool,” Ray repeated.

They let the static silence settle between them and Ray counted Michael’s breaths. He spun in a circle and looked at the clock, biting his lip. He really didn’t want to hang up, but he did have homework to get to.

Michael seemed to be reading his mind and spoke up first. “Well, I’ve got shit to do. See you later I guess.”

“Yeah,” Ray was hopelessly tangled in the phone cord at this point but he didn’t care because he was going to play video games with Michael on Friday and they were friends. “Yeah. See ya.”

When the line went dead, Ray let the dial tone drone in his ear and fought down the absolute elation that threatened to bubble up. This was the start of something beautiful. Maybe not exactly what he wanted, but it was sure to be something pretty fucking fantastic. Friendships were good. Friendships were _great_. Crushes were temporary for the most part anyway.

It turned out Michael only lived a few blocks down the road from Ray. His house was nice, an idyllic home with a driveway and a porch and even a flower garden out front, but Ray didn’t get a chance to really admire it before he was dragged into the living room by Michael. They spent the rest of the afternoon talking about pointless stuff and playing some violent game that Ray’s mother would have never approved of. Michael was even a decent gamer when Ray didn’t try too hard. They had pizza for dinner, stuffing slices in their mouths in between loading screens and lag. They laughed about a lot of things, dumb shit that only middle school boys really found funny, and as the night moved on Michael slowly became less of a perfect, unattainable romantic conquest and more of a dorky boy with a terrible sense of humor and the best laugh in the world. Ray might have still had to fight for control over his beating heart a few times throughout the night, but it was a start.

He had fun, Ray decided when the sun had set and he was sitting on the porch waiting for his mother to pick him up. He had fun and was pretty hopeful about his newfound friendship.

It only took two weeks for the crush to fade out. Michael made a better friend than he would a boyfriend anyway. Plus Ray liked the way Michael laughed at his jokes too much to ruin what they had going for them.

The months passed by. Friday rolled around again and Ray found himself in Michael’s living room like he had every Friday since their first game night. It was comfortable, what he and Michael had, and when Michael punched Ray in the arm after losing yet another match it was all in good fun and Ray shoved Michael’s shoulder while calling him a sore loser.

It was the beginning of the weekend, the beginning of something great and Ray had pretty much forgotten about the cardboard box stuffed with bygone infatuation gathering dust somewhere under his bed.


	2. [present progressive] it’s just my luck (no recess)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray and Michael have been best friends for years. It’s just a normal day in their normal lives.

Ray didn’t drive. The asshole still hadn’t gotten around to getting his license after he failed the test the first time, so Michael was his ride to school. Michael honestly had nothing against their setup or against Ray; they had been best friends for years and learned years ago how to compromise and take each other’s good traits with the bad. There were very few people in the world that could put up with Michael’s shitty humor. Plus, Michael figured, who else would make sure Ray got his lazy ass to school on time?

It was early morning. The sun was still close to the horizon and pastels bled soft swathes along the edge of the sky. There were few cars on the road and Michael wondered what sort of twisted system made teenagers get up so goddamn early. He pulled into the Narvaez driveway with the sort of habitual professionalism that came from repeating the same morning ritual for months. He put the car in park before leaning forward and looking up at the second-story window of the quiet suburban house.

Ray’s bedroom was right above the garage and the branches of the large maple tree sprouting next to the house jutted close enough to the window to make sneaking out easy and efficient. They should know, the number of times Michael had coaxed Ray out of that window after curfew for one reason or another was increasing exponentially over the years.

Even though the window’s fabric curtains were drawn, Michael could see that the light was on, which meant Ray had at least gotten out of bed by now. Michael stayed hunched over the steering wheel, peering through his windshield and up at Ray’s room as he honked the horn. The horn cut through the idyllic early morning quiet and sounded loud and harsh. Michael waited a beat before honking it again. The dog from two houses over barked in response. The third time Michael honked he held down his car horn, the blaring noise of the old jalopy echoing throughout the neighborhood.

The light in Ray’s room flicked off and Michael counted to ten in his head. The front door of the Narvaez household swung open right on schedule. Ray looked like an absolute mess, hair every which way and glasses askew, but at least he was up. He rubbed at his eyes as he made the short walk over to Michael’s awaiting chariot. When Ray slid into the passenger’s seat, Michael gave him a mock salute.

“Morning, sleepyhead.” Ray grunted unintelligibly. Michael smirked and put the car in reverse, “I’m sorry, what was that?”

Ray pulled the hood of his hoodie low over his face and slouched in the seat, “It’s too fucking early for this.”

Michael handed Ray a cup of hot coffee from the cup holder without taking his eyes off the road. “Too early for what? For school you mean?”

“Yeah,” Ray graciously accepted the peace offering and wrapped slender fingers around the steaming cup.

Michael put both hands on the steering wheel and stole a glance at his friend. Ray looked absolutely haggard and Michael wondered how late he stayed up playing video games. He rolled his eyes – because his best friend was so predictable that it was amazing really – and jabbed the CD button on his radio.

“Shut up and drink your coffee,” He said as piano chords and violins floated from his speakers.

A smile tugged at Ray’s lips as he recognized the song choice. “You’re such a fucking loser, Michael,” Ray muttered into the lip of his cup as he sipped his coffee and ignored the scandalized gasp from the driver’s seat.

“But, Ray!” Michael feigned offense before he started singing along to the song. “ _This day is going to be perfect! The kind of day of which I’ve dreamed of since I was small..._ ”

“Christ, where did you even get this?” Ray interrupted.

The song continued as Michael pulled up to a stop sign. He turned to Ray and winked, “Trade secret.”

Ray rolled his eyes because leave it to Michael to have the fucking soundtrack to _My Little Pony_. Not that Ray minded. They both knew as much and Ray fiddled with the controls and scrolled through the other tracks on the CD. “Hey do you have the ‘Cutie Mark Song’? That shit’s my jam.” Michael protested at his track getting cut off, but Ray continued flipping through songs until he found the one he was looking for. “You can’t tell me that Applejack’s part isn’t genius. I mean really? Using Rarity’s ‘Art of the Dress’? Fucking fantastic.”

Michael loudly groaned, speeding through an intersection right before the light turned red. He put on his blinker and changed lanes. “God, chill out, man. I can see your boner from all the way over here.”

Ray chuckled and leaned back in his seat, “Whatever, dude.” He went back to drinking his coffee.

Michael, against his better judgment, started to hum along. Ray looked out the window, tapping his fingers against his leg to the beat. His breath fogged up the window glass. They were quiet for a while; the music filled their comfortable silence enough for the both of them.

“I’m thinking of breaking up with Hazel by the way.”

Michael almost rear ended the car in front of them. He looked over at Ray with a frown. He didn’t get a chance to ask what the hell he was talking about before Ray elaborated. “She keeps getting on my case about dumb shit and I’m just over it. I think she’s over it too.”

“But you two have been dating since the seventh grade,” Michael said as if Ray didn’t know when he started dating his girlfriend of nearly three years.

Ray shrugged and continued to stare out the window, “Yeah, well, people change. She’s not into the lazy-but-endearingly-nerdy type anymore. And I’m not into…”

He trailed off and the light turned green. If the cars in front of him weren’t slowly rolling along, Michael would have chanced another look at Ray. “Not into what? Shallow bitches who you lost your virginity to?”

“She’s not a bitch, she’s just…” Ray couldn’t find the right word so he shrugged. “A girl,” he said.

Another stoplight. Michael ran his fingers across the hard surface of the steering wheel, eyebrows still furrowed. “Are you suggesting that all girls are bitches, Ray?”

“No, I…I’m just saying that she’s a girl. The same girl I’ve been with for almost three whole years. And I’m not into her anymore. I’m sixteen, it’s time for variety, you know?” Ray turned and flexed, nearly spilling his remaining coffee all over the seats. “You can’t keep this raw manhood on a leash forever, Michael.”

Michael had the courtesy to chuckle at the weak attempt to lighten the mood. Ray was never one for prolonged periods of heart to heart. He preferred to laugh serious shit off while Michael went for the direct and usually angry approach. But Michael and Ray had been friends long enough that he knew when to back off or play along. That didn’t stop him from offering his support.

“You know if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here for you,” he said.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know,” Ray turned the dial on the car radio, raising the volume a few notches, “Now cut out the sappy shit. Isn’t this like your theme song or something?”

They pulled into the school parking lot belting along to “Winter Wrap Up”. The windows were rattling and Michael almost hit the curb because he was too busy trying to hit the last note. The song faded out and he cut the engine with a twist of his wrist. They sat in the car in silence and watched other students trudge into the looming building that was their high school.

“You ready for another day on the grind?” Michael reached in the backseat to blindly grab his backpack.

Ray opened the door with a click, “Do we even have a choice?”

He climbed out of the car with the now empty cup of coffee and took a moment to stretch and enjoy the outside air against his face. Ray might not be the outdoorsy type, but he could appreciate a nice day from time to time.

Michael got out of the car, locked the doors, and pocketed his keys. He spared a few seconds to watch Ray stretch with his eyes closed and face tilted towards the sky. The sunlight cast a soft hue on his face, his hair was still a wreck, and the hem of his shirt rose high enough to expose his belly button. Ray was a welcomed constant in Michael’s life, that much was certain, and no matter how much of a hassle or a human disaster either of them turned out to be, they seemed to always fall back into step.

Michael leaned over the roof of his car and rapped his knuckles against the metal. Ray jumped.

“You done worshipping the sun there, flowerchild? I thought you were allergic to outside air.”

Ray snorted and chucked his cup at Michael’s head. It bounced off harmlessly, hit the asphalt, and rolled along the ground. They watched it roll to a stop and Michael pointed an accusatory finger at Ray.

“You’re so lucky that was empty, you piece of shit. Is that how you thank me for getting you coffee? By assaulting me and littering?”

Ray didn’t even bother responding to Michael’s antics, he just adjusted the strap on his backpack and headed towards the sidewalk that led from the student parking lot to the school’s doors. Michael jogged after him, calling his name and demanding an apology or some form of gratitude.

The early morning rays warmed their back as Michael and Ray crossed the threshold and entered the halls of their high school. It was another typical morning in the life of two best friends, but Michael had some reservations about what Ray told him on the ride over. They passed through the cafeteria and tried to avoid collision with sleepy classmates who had yet to fully wake up. Michael voiced the worry fluttering behind his chest as casually as he could.

“You sure about the Hazel thing, man?” He asked as he hooked his thumb on the strap of his back pack. He shot a furtive glance at Ray.

Ray groaned as he tilted his head back, “Not this shit again.” He slowed to a stop and Michael followed suit. Ray gave Michael a sobering look, almost all humor in his face gone. “Yeah I’m sure, Michael. If I don’t do it, she will, right? Besides I’ve got you and Gavin – the fucking foreign weirdo he is – and the rest of the gang. I’ll be alright.”

Michael nodded.

“Yeah,” he said, but the words “ _I worry about you”_ sat heavy and unspoken on his tongue.

Ray seemed to understand anyway as he smiled softly and rolled his eyes.  He slung an arm over Michael’s shoulders and steered them into the direction of the lockers.

“She’ll get over it, I’ll get over - hell, she’ll probably get over it before I do – and we’ll be good.”

Ray said it with a sort of finality that made Michael decide to let the topic drop. He wasn’t sure why he was worried about this breakup anyway; he had no real reason to be wary. Sure, Hazel was Ray’s first girlfriend, which would make this Ray’s first breakup, but Ray seemed completely at ease about it. So why was there an incessant buzzing right under Michael’s skin that set his teeth on edge?

Maybe it was how the whole thing seemed to come out of left field. They had seemed happy together last Michael checked and he felt like he would be the first to notice if the relationship was on the rocks. He had known Ray for so long, after all.

But hey, shit happened, people broke up, and life went on. Michael was intimately familiar with that concept after the Juggey Debacle of Freshman Year. To be fair, it was less of a debacle and more of Michael and Lindsay deciding to spend a summer apart only for Lindsay to start dating Barbara instead. It was a very…confusing start to Michael’s high school career.

Michael wondered if Ray and Hazel would stay close like he and Lindsay did after their breakup. He doubted it; Hazel and Ray never did run in the same social circles. It was a thought worth entertaining though, Michael figured as he yanked his locker open. He shoved his things inside as Ray leaned against the row of lockers next to Michael’s and looked up at the bright white ceiling lights.

“You still down for game night tonight?” Ray asked.

“Fuck yeah. When I have I ever _not_ been down for game night?”

Of course Michael was excluding the time when he had to go to a family reunion in the eighth grade and when Ray attended his grandmother’s funeral during their freshman yeah but, for the most part, their game nights had been a constant over the years. They weren’t planning on stopping anytime soon.

Michael drummed his fingers on his locker door as he surveyed what books he needed to grab for his first class. His AP World History book was nestled in his arms but it was his notebook that he couldn’t find buried in all the trash he had somehow accumulated over the semester.

“God, your locker is hideous,” Ray eyed Michael’s clutter with a faint look of disgust, “How do you find anything in that mess?”

Michael waved him off.

“Look, not everybody is as anal about cleanliness as you are. If you want to live your life as a clean freak, fucking go ahead. I like my mess just fine…”

He trailed off as he continued to look for his elusive History notebook. He was at least seventy percent sure that he had shoved it in there yesterday.

Ray leaned over and expertly plucked a notebook from Michael’s locker. The red cover was bent backwards and a few pages hung precariously from the wire spiral, but Michael recognized his own handwriting scrawled across the front.

“Looking for this?” Ray asked and Michael didn’t have to look to know that he had that smug look on his face. He snatched the notebook out of Ray’s loose grasp and muttered his thanks.

The early morning bustle of high school hallways was punctuated by a loud voice yelling with far too much energy.

“Hey! Ray!”

Both Michael and Ray turned towards the direction of the voice. It was Caleb, a kid their age who Michael had known since middle school. Trailing behind Caleb was Gavin, one of the transfer students who moved from the UK a couple years ago. When Caleb and Gavin had waded through the students loitering in the hallway, Caleb adjusted the bill of his baseball cap and lightly shoved Ray’s shoulder.

“Word on the street is that you’re single, man. What happened?”

Ray frowned. Michael tilted his head, confusion apparent on his face.

“What?” Ray said. It was more of a deadpan statement than a question.

“Yeah, Hazel told Blaine who told JJ and Barbara who told Lindsay who told me that you and her were over,” Caleb rambled on, clearly excited by the newest piece of gossip spat out by the high school rumor mill. “Is it true?”

Ray ran his hands through his hair. “Fuuuuuck.” He muttered a few more choice words to himself as he kicked off the wall of lockers, “See you at lunch, Michael. Don’t forget game night, alright?”

Michael closed his locker and nodded, “Alright. Have fun with your ex in AP Bio, nerd.”

“Fuck you,” Ray flipped him the bird as he stalked towards the hallway leading to the science labs. Michael laughed and spun the dial on his lock a few times.

“What is game night anyways?” Gavin spoke up for the first time since he and Caleb had walked up and Michael was pretty sure that was the longest he had ever heard the Brit be quiet. Gavin leaned against the lockers, taking the space Ray had left behind, and raised his eyebrows at Michael.

“Oh that’s right, you’ve only been hanging with us for like a year,” Caleb mused thoughtfully.

“It’s just something me and Ray do every Friday night,” Michael explained as he shifted the books in his arms, “We play video games and dick around. We’ve done game night since, like, the sixth grade, I think?”

Gavin took a minute to do the math in his head. His eyebrows furrowed and he spoke his next words slowly. “So, this is before Lindsay and Barbara were a thing?”

Caleb shook his head, “Dude, this is before Lindsay and _Michael_ were even a thing. Rumor has it that Michael and Ray have a friendship that rivals Jack and Geoff’s.”

Michael rolled his eyes and leaned a shoulder against his closed locker. “Caleb, that’s bullshit and you know it. Geoff and Jack are fucking legendary.”

Caleb shrugged with a grin before shoving his hands in his pockets, “Hey, I’m just telling him what everyone else already knows, whether it’s true or not.”

Michael looked at Gavin, who was still working some stuff over in his head. He really wasn’t a bright one, was he? Michael huffed and made a face that Ray had insisted on calling pouting even though Michael had assured him time and time again that it wasn’t.

“Wow, you’re really having trouble with this one, aren’t you? Look, Gav, I know we’ve only known you, what, one out of the three years you’ve been here? But it’s not that hard to keep up with.” Michael pointed in the direction that Ray had stormed off in, “We hang out every Friday. We play video games. What are you not getting here?”

Gavin chose his next words carefully, staring down Michael as he spoke, “And you two have never dated? Or kissed? Or anything?”

Michael snorted. That’s what Gavin was hung up on? The fact that Michael and Ray had never boned? “Not everybody’s like you and Dan, Gavin. We don’t all end up fucking our best friends.”

Gavin made a face, wrinkles creasing over the bridge of his nose. Skepticism was written across his features. Michael rolled his eyes. What Gavin and Dan got up to in their free time wasn’t any of his business, but what he and Ray had was different. He knew it and Ray knew it. They were close in a platonic way and it worked; _they_ worked.

Gavin’s confusion amused Michael. The guy always did have a difficult time grasping concepts that didn’t line up with his own life experiences. And it wasn’t that Dan and Gavin weren’t a good match – they were pretty much guaranteed to win “Cutest Couple” for senior superlatives and graduation was still two years away – the notion of he and Ray dating was just really... _absurd_ to Michael.

It was so far out of the realm of possibility that Michael didn’t even bother to bring the topic up to Ray at game night that night. Usually he would jump on the chance to repeat whatever laughable thing their friends had said during the time when he and Ray weren’t together. But tonight Ray was really intent on fussing about his newly ex-girlfriend.

“So then we get into this full-blown argument in lab, right? And it was just really fucking stupid,” Ray angrily plucked the pepperoni off the top of his pizza. He stacked them in a lopsided tower of grease and meat on his plate, “And like, it’s gonna be really fucking hard to pass Bio when your lab partner called you a chode in front of the whole class. And now she refuses to reply to any of my texts and – just – this whole thing is just – fucking stupid.”

Michael refrained from commenting on Ray’s lack of eloquence. He opened his can of Coke with a hiss. “Well you wanted to break up with her anyway, right?”

He took a sip and watched Ray out of the corner of his eye. Ray practically deflated as he stared at his self-made cheese pizza. He picked up his leaning tower of pepperoni and stuffed it in his mouth.

“Yeah,” Ray said around a mouth of meat and grease, “But I didn’t want to fail fucking AP Bio at the same time. It was her idea to take this class together in the first place!”

Michael groaned. He was over this conversation. Ray would stay on this circular track and spiral downward if no one was there to stop him. They had better things to do with their Friday than throw pity parties and Michael was just the person to push them in the right direction. He shoved his soda at Ray’s chest, who nearly fumbled the can in the abruptness.

“Ray,” Michael said sternly as he moved to swipe Ray’s slice of pizza off his plate, “You’ll be fine.”

Michael wondered if he had telegraphed his move because Ray snatched his plate out of Michael’s grasp right before he could claim his prize. Ray was frowning at Michael, but it wasn’t the sorry, self-pitying one he had been sporting since second period. This frown was more playful than anything as Ray lifted his plate to his mouth and dragged his tongue across his slice of pizza, claiming it as his own.

Of course there was more pizza in the box sitting on the counter in the kitchen, but it was the principle of the matter now, Michael rationalized as he tackled his best friend and pinned him to the couch cushions. Ray struggled to escape, but it was hard to keep his food out of Michael’s reach and try not to spill a nearly full can of soda at the same time. Especially when the person doing it was as physically inept as Ray.

Michael swiftly claimed his prize with his best friend writhing beneath him. He took a bite out of the cooling pizza. It wasn’t really as satisfying without the pepperoni, but it was worth it. Michael thoughtfully chewed on Ray’s pizza. He looked down at Ray trapped between his knees.

“She’s not gonna want to fail either,” Michael plucked the Coke can from Ray’s loose grip, “She’s just as big a fucking nerd as you are. She’ll be over it by Monday.”

The playfulness that had been flickering in Ray’s eyes faded. He looked away and turned his face to the side, staring at the blank screen of the television.

“You’re probably right, but let’s...let’s stop talking about girls – about her. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Done and done,” Michael said as he climbed off of Ray. He scanned the mess cluttering the coffee table, looking for the tv remote, “We can talk about video games and how I’m totally gonna kick your ass tonight.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Ray sat up on the couch, rubbing the back of his neck.

Michael clicked on the television and tossed a controller at Ray. He didn’t really care which one of them came out on top this weekend – it was probably going to be Ray because he had a tendency to get really intense when things in life were bothering him – all that mattered was that Michael and Ray were going to hang out tonight, breakups be damned.

Besides, Michael figured as he turned on the console and plopped down on the couch next to Ray, who needed girls when they had each other?


	3. [present] like or like like

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray realizes that he has feelings for Michael. He’s not really taking the realization well.

Ray thought he was over it. No, he _was_ over it. He had known Michael for years now, crushes of the past long forgotten. Or so he had assumed.

It all started again in the middle of the summer between their sophomore and junior year of high school. It was July. It was probably the hottest day of the year and Ray was wearing his dumb black hoodie in the sweltering heat like an idiot.

He had walked all the way to Michael’s house to bug him into playing video games because that was just the sort of friend Ray was. Michael’s room was on the first floor. His window opened up to Mrs. Jones’s flowerbed and it was the greatest setup for when Michael wanted to sneak out for one reason or another. Which was a lot of the time, really.

Ray didn’t have any plans for the day. It was a lazy summer afternoon and he was being a useless sack of shit as per usual. He just wanted to waste the afternoon away with his friend.

He didn’t know that Michael was going to have his bedroom window open that afternoon. He didn’t know that Michael was going to be in the middle of pulling off his shirt, back facing the window. He didn’t know that Michael had filled out over the years in all the right ways. He didn’t know that watching Michael twist and turn, freckles dancing across his skin, would make his face turn bright red from something other than the blistering summer heat.

Ray quickly spun around, almost tripping over the newly planted delphiniums in the yard. He bumped the watering can instead and stumbled right into the garden hose reel.  He fell with a yelp and hit the dirt face first. Lying in Mrs. Jones’s flowers nose deep in mulch wasn’t the most dignified moment of Ray’s young life. He wondered if Michael heard the racket and if he still had enough time to sneak home, crawl under his covers, and think about the ominous feeling swirling in his stomach.

There was laughter from overhead. Looked like Ray’s question was answered. Michael’s voice floated outside, words punctuated by his laughter.

“What the fuck, Ray? Talk about graceless.”

Ray pushed himself up with a groan. He sat cross-legged in the flowerbed and spit out a few wood chips, wiping dirt off his face. “Shut up,” he muttered, the taste of dirt and embarrassment heavy on his tongue.

Michael just kept laughing. When Ray finally looked up at him, he really wished he hadn’t. Michael was leaning out of his window with his shirt hanging around his neck. The sun bore down on his bare shoulders and he looked like some marble statue. Like the ones they saw during a field trip to the local museum. Michael grinned. Ray’s heart fluttered painfully. Michael leaned on the windowsill, chin propped up on his hand.

“Why are you wiping out in my front yard anyway? Don’t you, like, never leave the house if you don’t have to?”

Ray stared down at the ground between his legs. “You weren’t answering your phone,” he said with a shrug, plucking the frail leaves of a few choice weeds, “I wanted to see if you’d get online and play for a bit.”

It seemed kind of silly now that he was here, but Ray hadn’t given it a second thought when he left the house. He had done this pretty regularly over the years. Gaming was a staple in their relationship. Relationship meaning friendship of course.

“Oh,” Michael sounded kind of distracted, but Ray was too busy studying the grit of the earth to look up, “Whoops. I think I left it charging in the kitchen.”

Ray continued to focus on the soil and prodded a few holes in it with his index finger. The dirt was surprisingly cool considering how hot it was today. Ray was also notably cooler than he was minutes ago. The heat that had rushed to his face when he first saw Michael had dissipated, but Ray was afraid that it would resurface if he looked at Michael again.

Maybe Ray shouldn’t have left the house today.

“You busy?” He attempted to sound casual, and he was pretty proud of the result. He didn’t sound snarky or feeble or anything.

“Actually,” Michael’s voice faded a bit and when Ray dared to look up again, he saw that Michael had moved away from the window. Ray leaned up and peered into the bedroom. Michael had his back to Ray again. There was a flash of bare skin and he finished pulling on a new shirt. Ray was a bit disappointed. “I’m gonna head to the pool to meet up with Gav and Linds, you wanna come?”

Ray rolled his eyes and stood up so he could hoist himself through the window, “Hell no. It’s too fucking hot for that.”

“Says the asshole wearing a hoodie in July.”

Michael had a point, but Ray wasn’t going to admit to that. To concede a point to Michael was like admitting to your mother that you’re cold when she told you to bring a jacket. You didn’t give them the satisfaction that easily. You kept your lips sealed and be a little shit about it.

Ray sat on the windowsill so that his legs dangled. He swung his feet so that they rhythmically hit the wall beneath where he sat, “You got a problem with my hoodie?”

Michael still had his back to the window and to Ray. He was rooting around the mess on his floor, looking for what had to be his sandals. “No, Ray,” Michael said as he shoved a hand under his bed, “No fucking problem. You’re just a dumbass.”

“Well, I mean,” Ray shrugged, “That’s what I get for hanging out with you. Shit’s contagious.”

Michael chuckled and for some reason Ray was really proud of himself for being the reason behind the laughter.

“Shut the fuck up, Ray.”

The words held no venom as Michael shook his head and gave Ray a look. Ray refrained from sticking out his tongue and daring Michael to make him shut up. Michael would do it. He’d throw something at Ray’s head or walk up and slap his hand over Ray’s mouth and Ray wasn’t sure if he could handle that sort of closeness today. There was a tightness in his gut that was making a reappearance and Ray suddenly felt really self-conscious and uncomfortable.

“Alright,” Michael stood up and his sudden declaration nearly made Ray jump out of his skin, “I’ve gotta bounce, the guys are waiting.”

Ray noticed the sandals on Michael’s feet. How long had he been self-reflecting on how he suddenly felt weird in his own skin? He must have been doing it again, internally pontificating while letting life pass him by, because Michael had somehow moved across the room and was talking to Ray again. Ray managed to tune in right at the end.

“If you’re gonna stay in my room, don’t forget to close the window when you leave. That stray cat is still roaming the neighborhood.”

Ray numbly shook his head before he even knew what he was going to say. “Nah,” was the first word to leave his mouth. He turned to climb out of the window and back into the heat. The rest of his sentence easily followed, “I’m going back home.”

“What,” Michael started with a grin, “Don’t wanna clean my room for me while I’m gone? It’d put that OCD of yours to good use. Better than looking like a fucking home invader climbing out of my window like that.”

“I’m not –” Ray cut himself off. They weren’t having this conversation again. They had agreed that Michael would deal with Ray’s not entirely healthy cleaning habits and Ray would deal with Michael’s not entirely healthy irritability. He settled for flipping Michael the bird and hopped off the windowsill.

Ray made sure to avoid the crumpled delphiniums in the garden and started the walk back home, hands shoved in his pockets. The sun beat down overhead and summer was almost over. Ray thought about how much he liked looking at Michael’s body. He wondered how Michael would feel about that. But no matter how much Ray enjoyed the view, no matter how much the bubbling in his gut turned into something more familiar and carnal, it was better if they just stayed friends.

After all, romance always got really fucking complicated.

It got worse when Ray found the box under his bed.

It happened a few days after the whole “seeing Michael shirtless and feeling really weird about it” incident. Ray had been in his bedroom and had accidentally kicked his controller under his bed. While scrounging around, he ran across nostalgic memorabilia. Then his fingers brushed against cardboard and he tugged at the dusty edges until the box came forth.

In all honesty, he had forgotten about the old thing, shoved in the back and collecting dust. He saw the date scrawled across the side in his old sloppy handwriting and everything came flooding back. Ray was cringing before he even flipped open the top. God, he was an embarrassing kid.

The box was stuffed with notebooks and loose-leaf papers and everything was in the twelve year old version of Technicolor. How many colored pencils and gel pens had he borrowed and wasted on some of these?

Ray picked up a random notebook and flipped through a few of the pages. He couldn’t help but smile. Most of the entries were his younger self’s assumptions of young Michael’s personality. It was before Ray had had a chance to talk to Michael. Before they had a real life conversation and became tentative friends. Ray ran a finger over the silvery words scrawled across the paper.

_Michael’s so cool! I bet he’s super tough and can beat people up no problem!!_

Ray shook his head. Except Michael was actually a total softie. He might have the worst temper Ray had ever encountered, but he would avoid a physical confrontation if he could. He was also one of the shortest people in their class until sophomore year of high school and knew all of the words to no less than four Disney Channel movies. Yeah, “cool” was not the most accurate description of Michael.

Ray continued reading. He had to full on laugh at the next line. This one was in purple and didn’t shimmer in the light with iridescent glitter.

_I bet Michael gets all the girls!_

Yeah, except for the time when he actually hid in the bathroom to avoid a girl who was aggressively flirting with him during lunch in the eighth grade. Ray smiled endearingly at the memory. Michael and Lindsay were still dating at the time and he was really bad at talking to girls who weren’t his girlfriend. It wasn’t until the bell rang to signal the end of lunch that Ray even went to go look for him. There was something about seeing your best friend hiding in a bathroom stall looking confused and agitated that sort of ruined that Casanova image.

For all of Michael’s aggressiveness and rough edges, he was a sweet guy with a great sense of humor and an absolutely adorable laugh.

Ray suddenly realized that he was in deep shit. Between laughing at forgotten memories and handling the tangible nostalgia from a forgotten box under his bed, the revelation hit him like a punch in the gut: Ray liked his best friend.

It wasn’t the old obsessive crush from before, full of hero worship and projected personalities. This was real. Ray liked his best friend more than best friends were supposed to like each other.

He stared at the notebook in his hands. He wasn’t really focused on it anymore. He was thinking. His eyes slid over to the other things crammed in the box as he mentally went over his options. As it stood, he had two choices here:

A: he could pretend that nothing had changed and that the mere thought of talking to Michael didn’t set off butterflies in his stomach

Or B: he could tell Michael how he felt.

Both choices sucked and Ray wasn’t sure he was brave enough for either of them, but they were better than choice C: get over it. Because Ray thought he _had_ gotten over it. And he had, in a way. This was something similar and yet altogether different and Ray was royally fucked.

Ray fiddled with the corner of the notebook as he chewed on his bottom lip. Maybe he’d leave out the part about the secret box of feelings. Poetry, wedding announcements, hand-drawn scrapbooks…those were simply unnecessary details. Right?

He slammed the notebook down in the box, plumes of dust billowing into the air. Coughing, Ray waved the dust clouds out of his face. As much as he hated to admit it and as much as he just wanted to get through high school with his friendship intact, Ray knew what he had to do. He headed out of his room and slipped on his sneakers by the front door. He was going with choice B. He was going to tell Michael.

This was a bad idea and Ray realized it a bit too late.

He had decided to confess right out, Michael could accept or deny his feelings right then and there so Ray could move on. He had hopped on his bike, the one that Michael had taught him to ride last year, and ridden to Michael’s house. He had given himself a pep talk the whole way, all the way up to the point where he leaned his bike against the car parked across the street from the Jones residence.

He could do this. This was for the good of their friendship. Everything was going to be weird between them whether Michael knew or not, so this was the better option. At least this way Ray would know how Michael felt about him and he could move on for good.

Except when Ray rang the doorbell he lost every ounce of nerve he had.

He spun on his heels and sprinted off of the Jones’s front porch. He barely had time to dive behind the parked car across the street before the front door swung open. Peering out from behind the car, Ray could see Michael standing in the doorway with one hand on his head. He looked irritated when he realized no one was there and closed the door with a slam.

Well shit. Ray hadn’t meant to doorbell ditch his best friend slash crush. He ran a hand over his face and slid against the car as he sat down on the concrete. There had to be a better way to go about this.

Ray needed backup. Or at the very least he needed a second opinion. And what better opinion than his friends?

He had told Kerry and Miles to meet him in the local park for their help. Ray sat on one swing while Kerry sat on the other. Miles stood behind Kerry and lightly pushed his boyfriend’s swing. Ray had barely gotten three sentences into his explanation of his dilemma before Kerry flat out denied to assist.

“Nope,” Kerry crossed his arms and glared as best he could. Even after puberty the guy was still as adorable as a basket of kittens. He was serious though, so Ray refrained from pinching his cheeks and telling him so. Kerry stood up off his swing and started to walk away, “I’m tapping out. I’m not going through this again. You were a pain in the ass in the sixth grade and _I’m not going through that again._ ”

“Come on, man. I’m not asking for much. Just…what should I do?” Ray frowned and looked over at Miles.

Miles smiled at Ray, apology already on the tip of his tongue, “Sorry, dude I can’t help either. You’re on your own here.” He sat down in the empty swing Kerry had left behind and lightly kicked off, “Are you seriously gonna tell him this time?”

Ray shrugged. He slowly spun in a circle on his swing, watching the chains spiral around each other, “That was the plan.”

Kerry leaned against the metal frame of the swing set. Crossing his arms, he shook his head and muttered about his disbelief that this was happening again after all these years. Ray couldn’t honestly blame him, though he was surprised that they had remembered his gross crush from middle school. It felt like forever ago, and Ray himself had even let it slip his mind over the years.

Miles continued to swing, pumping his legs to get more height, “You still got those wedding invites you drew? Fall, right?”

Ray stopped twirling his swing’s chains and glared at Miles. Miles made sure to cheekily grin and kept swinging.

“Fuck you, Miles,” Ray said before picking his feet up off the ground and letting the chains unwind.

As the swing spun in a tight circle, Ray felt sick. Not from dizziness, but because, yeah, he still had those stupid invites decorated with colored pencils and half a container of glitter. He had picked their wedding date to be on his birthday because twelve year old Ray was a fucking idiot who thought that the best birthday present ever would be to marry the love of his life.

Since Kerry and Miles were no help, Ray decided to move on to the next couple he could think of.

Barbara laughed. He had let her and Lindsay drag him to the mall and even held their bags for hours, but when Ray told them that he kind of sort of had feelings for Michael again, Barbara’s shrill laughter rang out in the small changing room. Ray squirmed on the hard bench and fiddled with the straps of a Forever 21 bag.

The changing room door opened and Barbara peeked her head out. She had the biggest grin on her face. “You wanna borrow my gel pens again?”

God, did all of his friends remember in vivid detail how embarrassing he was?

Barbara was shoved out of the way by Lindsay, who exited the fitting room in a dress that Ray was pretty sure she already bought three stores ago. She turned around. The back of the dress was unzipped and the straps of her blue bra stared Ray in the face.

“Zip me up.”

Ray did as he was told and Lindsay turned around. She checked herself out in the mirror and debated whether the purchase was worth it or not. She struck a few poses before sighing. She and Ray made eye contact in the mirror’s reflection.

“I kind of remember that being a thing, your crush or whatever. But I was too busy, y’know, not being a nerd and playing softball and shit to pay attention.”

The dressing room door opened again and Barbara bounded out to show off the floral print crop top she had picked out. She pulled out her phone and started to take pictures of her and Lindsay in the three way mirror.

“Oh it was absolutely hilarious. He was head over heels before he and Michael had even had an actual conversation,” Barbara flipped through her phone’s gallery, checking out her photography skills, “He’d borrow my gel pens almost every day in English. Then one day he just stopped.”

Lindsay stared at Ray in the mirror. Ray avoided looking at her and stared straight ahead. The lights of the fitting room felt hot and the girls’ purses felt heavy on his lap. Lindsay walked over to him, her bare feet slapping on the floor. She gave Ray a sympathetic pat on the shoulder,

“You’re on your own with this one, Narvaez.”

Yeah, Ray was starting to figure that one out.

He tried a few other people he knew, but no one was much help. JJ was too busy fixing his motorcycle with Blaine to offer any useful advice. Jack and Joel were trying to focus on their schoolwork and refused to let Caiti get dragged into Ray’s drama.

That left the British Boyfriends, as Michael liked to call them.

Dan was easy to find, he was working at the local coffee shop this summer. It was pretty empty this early in the morning, but Gavin was sitting on the counter playfully throwing coffee beans at Dan when Ray walked in. He must have had a look on his face or Dan was just as good at reading people as Michael because he was already asking what was wrong before Ray had a chance to open his mouth.

When he had explained his predicament, the old crush and the open window and the new feelings, Dan slid an iced mocha his way. It was on the house. Ray didn’t really like coffee – he had never gotten around to telling Michael that, unfortunately – but he accepted the offer anyway. He noisily slurped on the cold treat and waited for Dan or Gavin to say something. Gavin tore the paper ends off of straws and blew the wrappers at different tables across the store. Dan fiddled with the pens behind the register.

“Just tell him,” Dan said eventually.

“But don’t make it weird,” Gavin was quick to jump in, a newly unwrapped straw between his teeth.

Dan plucked the straw out of Gavin’s mouth and threw it in the bin behind the counter. “Your definition of weird is probably different from Ray’s, B,” he said as he wiped his hands on the front of his apron.

Gavin picked up a new straw, still wrapped in paper, and aimed it at Ray to stress his point, “Don’t. Make it. Weird.”

Ray nearly went cross-eyed looking down at the straw prodding his nose. He thought back to his first failed attempt at confessing and how he had accidentally ding dong ditched Michael. He had also been avoiding Michael all week and his phone was full of unanswered texts.

“I…probably already made it weird,” Ray said with a grimace.

Gavin shook his head. He took the straw and hit one end of it against the counter so that the other end broke through the wrapper.

“You’re screwed,” Gavin said before putting the exposed end of the straw in his mouth and blowing hard enough to shoot the wrapper at Ray.

It hit Ray right between the eyes. Dan swiped the straw from Gavin’s lips with an apologetic look, “Don’t listen to Gav. Just tell him. You’ll be alright, mate. Michael’s a sensible guy.”

Ray nodded. He sure hoped Dan was right. He thanked both Dan and Gavin for their input and left the empty café. Today was Friday. Resurfaced crushes or not, Ray wasn’t going to miss a game night. He slurped on the iced mocha as he unlocked his bike from the bike rack. Its bittersweet flavor washed over his tongue.

Friday night rolled around faster than Ray liked and, before he knew it, he and Michael were playing video games and eating pizza in Michael’s room. Ray remembered when Michael first got a tv in his room. They had spent the whole weekend together playing video games and it was _awesome_ , but now being in Michael’s room felt weird. They were alone and the sun had set. They hadn’t bothered turning on the lights and the flickering television screen was the only thing illuminating the room.

“Alright,” Michael stood up and picked up the empty pizza box and cans, “You win that round, but next time you’re going down.”

Ray watched Michael putter around and clean up their mess. He may not have been as obsessed with cleanliness as Ray was, but he wasn’t the type to leave food lying around. He said that shit like that was disgusting. He was sloppy, not unsanitary. Ray didn’t see much of a difference.

“I’m glad you showed up, by the way,” Michael stuffed the trash into a trash bag and kept talking, “You weren’t answering my texts and I couldn’t figure out if you were just being antisocial or a dick or what. Should’ve known you wouldn’t skip out on game night, right?”

Michael looked at Ray with a smile. His freckles weren’t visible in the partial darkness, but his smile set off butterflies in Ray’s stomach all the same. Ray should probably do this now before he chickened out again. Do it fast, like ripping off a bandage. Get it over with. Either Michael liked him back or Ray was ruining one of the greatest friendships he had ever had.

Ray swallowed thickly. No big deal.

“Do you like me?”

Michael chuckled. “Hell yeah I like you,” he tied off the top of the trash bag and threw it next to the door, “Otherwise I wouldn’t put up with half of your shit.”

Ray shook his head so hard that his glasses nearly flew off his face. The controller was slick in his hands.

“No, I mean,” he took a deep breath and looked Michael in the eyes. It was now or never. “Do you _like_ me? Like, like like me?”

Michael stared at Ray. He stared at Ray for a while. He tilted his head and continued to stare. Ray squirmed under the steady gaze. There was a long stretch of silence that Ray was sure he would drown in.

“Is that why you’ve been acting weird?”

Michael said it so matter-of-factly. Like all of a sudden everything made sense and he had the answers to the universe. Ray spluttered.

“Wha – I haven’t been –”

“You’ve been acting weird.”

Okay, so Ray had been acting weird. Big deal. That wasn’t the important part. The important part was whether Michael liked Ray back. God, he felt like he was in middle school again. Their friendship was on the line right now and Michael was worried about Ray ignoring a few texts. Typical.

“Look, do you like me or not? Because we can stop doing this if you don’t or if you hate me now or whatever. It’s not that big a deal if –”

Michael clamped his hand over Ray’s mouth, effectively stopping his rambling in its tracks.

“Just…shut the fuck up, Ray,” Michael scanned his face, looking for what, Ray didn’t know. He laughed weakly and dropped his hand from Ray’s lips. “Christ, you can’t – you can’t just spring this on me and expect me to know right away. Give me time to think about it, alright?”

Ray nodded. He felt numb and the thrumming wings of the butterflies slowed down to a dying pulse. Michael quickly stood up and grabbed the trash bag. He muttered some quick excuse about forgetting to put the trash can out on the curb and left. The door closed behind him with a soft click.

Ray fucked up. He let the controller fall out of his lap and pulled his knees close to his chest. Maybe Dan was wrong. He wasn’t going to be alright. Or maybe Dan was right. Maybe Michael _was_ sensible. Sensible enough to know that a relationship with Ray was a stupid idea. Ray cursed his past self for shoving his feelings in a box all those years ago instead of just throwing them in the trash where they belonged.

Ray was so busy beating himself up and lamenting a friendship that had yet to end that he didn’t hear the bedroom door open. Michael walked in and closed the door behind him. He kicked Ray’s leg. Ray looked up at him, fixing his glasses so he could properly see Michael’s face.

“So I’ve thought about it,” Michael said as he crossed his arms. The butterflies were gone and a bottomless pit replaced the spot where they once fluttered. Michael continued, “Here’s what we’ll do: we’ll go on a date. Like an actual first date. You’ve got to take me somewhere fancy though, okay? None of that Taco Bell at three in the morning shit. Like an actual sit down restaurant.”

Ray stared blankly at Michael. Surely he wasn’t hearing this correctly. Surely Michael wasn’t telling Ray that he wasn’t totally disgusted by Ray’s feelings. Surely Michael wasn’t planning their first date together. But here he was, standing before Ray, pouting like a spoiled kid and giving his demands. Ray couldn’t believe this was happening. He wasn’t about to complain though.

Michael shrugged and crouched down in front of Ray. Their faces were close and Ray could smell the garlic bread on Michael’s breath.

“Who knows, maybe if I like the food enough, I’ll give you a blowjob in the restaurant’s bathroom.” He put his hands up in a placating gesture and smirked, “I’m kidding by the way. That was a joke. I’m not putting your dick in my mouth until at least the third date.”

“Are you serious, right now? I swear to God, Michael, if you’re just being a dick I –”

Michael rolled his eyes, “Jesus Christ, have you always been this insecure? I’m telling you I’ll give it a shot.” He moved away from Ray, putting space between them, “I don’t know if I like you like that yet, but feed me first, treat me right, and we’ll see.”

Ray shakily exhaled. It wasn’t a no. It wasn’t a yes either, but it wasn’t a no. Ray had asked if Michael liked him back and he had gotten a maybe in return. That was good enough for Ray. He smiled at Michael and Michael smiled back. Ray picked up his abandoned game controller. He had the perfect first date in mind.


	4. [future] best friends (ex-friends til the end)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray and Michael start dating and it’s fast and fun at first but then they start having trouble defining the line between friends and boyfriends. It all falls apart pretty majestically.

Michael couldn’t remember if kisses were supposed to taste like anything.

He couldn’t remember if they were supposed to be so warm. So wet. But they had to be, right? Because all he could process was the slick heat of Ray’s lips as they crashed into his. The warm, wet heat of Ray’s mouth against his was enough to get his brain to come to a screeching halt and Michael couldn’t even remember if this was how first dates were supposed to end.

The night had started out clichéd enough. They had gone to see a movie. The name of the movie wasn’t important, something mediocre and entertaining enough that Michael didn’t want to totally bail within the first five minutes. After the credits started to roll, Michael and Ray had walked down the street to the arcade. It was then that all of the details of the night blurred together.

Somehow a few rounds of _The House of the Dead_ led to Michael frantically kissing his best friend in a photo booth. One of those cheap ones that printed out grainy pictures with terrible quality. Not that Michael had a problem with making out with Ray – it was hot and wet and nice – he was just pretty sure this was different than what he had expected.

He didn’t expect to feel Ray’s fingers tightly curled in his hair. He didn’t expect the vibration of Ray’s lips as he hummed into Michael’s mouth. No, it was less of a hum and more of a whine, and Michael couldn’t help but smirk at the noise. Who knew Ray Narvaez was so damn noisy when sporting a half chub in those same damn jeans he had been wearing for years now? And it was like Ray knew what he was thinking because before Michael even had a chance to say a word he pulled away, face flushed and breathing heavy.

“Shut the fuck up.”

Michael tried to put on his most innocent face. He was sure if Ray squinted hard enough he’d be able to see an actual halo floating above his head. As it stood, all he had were his fluttering eyelashes and dimpled smile to back him up.

“What? No judgment here, man.” His smile was a full-on grin now, twisting into something devilish because Michael was having far too much fun with this weird turn of events. “I mean, to be fair, who wouldn’t enjoy swapping spit with their bestie in a dumbass arcade?”

It felt strange to say it out loud. Michael was making out with his friend of several years in a dusty old arcade a few blocks from home. An arcade they had been to time and time again since middle school, wasting hours and quarters and laughs among the dated game cabinets. Michael briefly wondered if this date was a good idea.

Ray rolled his eyes. “Goddammit, Michael,” he muttered as he moved to exit the photo booth. His dramatic exit was tarnished by his fumbling as he attempted to untangle his and Michael’s limbs, nearly tearing down the fabric curtain in the process.

Apparently, Michael’s comment had ruined the moment. If you could call kissing in a photo booth a “moment”.  Michael scrambled to follow Ray, making a mental note to work on his flirty banter. Jokes about the funny way your date keened into your mouth weren’t sexy. Noted.

“Aw c’mon, Ray! Do you always whine that much or is my sheer amount of masculinity such a fucking turn on?” The moment was already ruined, so Michael figured he was free to poke fun all he wanted now. Ray chuckled, for what it was worth, shoving his hands in his pockets as he headed towards the door. When Michael fell into step next to him, he bumped their shoulders together.

“Nah,” Ray started as he shoved open the door and the bell above the frame announced their exit. The summer night air was thick and muggy. “It was obviously the shitton of AXE that was doing it for me.”

Michael winced. “Is it that bad?”

He had actually been pretty nervous about tonight. He kept sweating pit stains in every shirt he tried on and had to settle for wearing a dark hoodie to hide it. He had even texted Gavin for advice – an idea that he realized was ridiculous in retrospect – and Gavin’s solution had been to drown out any possible must with body spray.

Michael plucked at the fabric of his shirt and sniffed a few times. He didn’t think he smelled too terrible, but he shot a look at Ray anyway. Ray shrugged, feet scuffing against the pavement as they walked home.

“I’m kidding, asshole. I only noticed it when I, uh, leaned in to…y’know,” Ray was resolutely looking straight ahead and Michael tried not to laugh. Ray was so awkward about shit. It was cute. Michael veered to the left so that he and Ray were pressed together side to side. Ray nearly tripped and tried to shove Michael off.

“Tried to what?” Michael crooned in his ear, putting on airs and trying to cover up the fluttering feeling in his own chest, “To kiss me?”

Ray nodded. Even with the light fading fast from the sky, Michael could see his cheeks flush pink.

When had Ray gotten so…adorable? Michael stood up straight and cleared his throat. He walked a few steps ahead and tried to sound as casual as possible as he continued, “Y’know, next time you want to kiss me, maybe you should actually aim for my mouth.” The streetlamps flickered on above their heads, lighting the way home. Michael was forced to stop walking as they approached a crosswalk.

As they waited for the traffic to clear enough to cross, Ray hummed thoughtfully. “What,” he finally said as they crossed the street, “I don’t get points for trying?”

Michael snorted. “Oh, you get points alright. Points for nearly breaking my glasses like a fucking idiot,” he fiddled with the arm of his glasses to emphasize his point, “Not sure how I’d explain that one to my mom.”

“Like it’d be the first time you lied about that shit,” Ray said with a laugh. He pitched his voice to a higher octave and furrowed his brows. “I dunno, they just broke, Ma. No clue how I broke my arm either. Maybe I rolled over on it in my sleep?” He cut off his imitation of Michael with that short, sharp laughter that was absolutely endearing. “Like she wasn’t going to figure out that you fell off the goddamn roof.”

“Jumped, actually,” Michael corrected, “And maybe if you weren’t such a punk-ass Charizard and told me to use Drifblim instead, it would’ve worked out better.”

Ray immediately jumped to his own defense, complaining that Michael’s plan was half-baked in the first place and those were the hazards of playing pretend on a roof and how was he supposed to know that umbrellas did shit-all to break a person’s fall? Michael would have continued teasing and dragging on an argument that was nothing but playful reminiscing at this point, but they passed an empty lot and he immediately stopped walking.

The lot was overrun with too high grass, weeds sprouting up from abandoned junk and forgotten trash. At any other time of the year, Michael would have walked passed this place without a second glance, but here and now was different. Here and now was temporary. It was beautiful. Ray had probably stopped talking by now, noticing Michael’s distraction and silence, but Michael had stopped listening long ago. All he could see were the fireflies.

They were blinking in and out of existence, small beacons that dimmed and glowed at a slow and steady pace like a heartbeat. The lot looked like heaven for a second, if heaven were a place that existed on earth. Among the glimmering of the fireflies, life seemed good. Temporary and fragile and good.

Michael felt warmth flood through his fingertips as Ray linked their hands together. He didn’t take his eyes off the fireflies and squeezed Ray’s hand. “If we do this, it won’t be weird, will it?” He said. “It’ll be like how we are now only with more kissing and shit?”

He was scared. Michael was really scared that he was going to mess this up. He had agreed to go on this date out of a sense of obligation. He had already rebuffed Ray’s feelings years ago, back when they didn’t have an entire friendship on the line, and he couldn’t afford to lose Ray. He didn’t want to give up what they had. He didn’t know if what he felt towards Ray was love or the potential to love, but he definitely felt _something_ and that something was worth exploring.

“Yeah!” Ray blurted out. He must have realized just how eager he sounded because he cleared his throat and squeezed Michael’s hand back, “I mean, if you want.”

Michael knew that Ray wanted this. He wasn’t sure how long Ray had wanted it, but he knew that Ray was super into this – into Michael – and he was just so goddamn happy about it that Michael didn’t want to ruin anything. He knew Ray was terrible at feelings; he either took a step back, acting detached to protect himself, or he threw himself in heart first and loved recklessly. Michael didn’t really get it because he had always had a tendency to wear his heart on his sleeve and speak his mind, but when he saw Ray curled up on his floor beating himself up over whether his feelings would be returned or not, Michael realized he had an important decision to make. He had to bite his tongue and think things through for once. He couldn’t just brush off Ray’s confession this time because this time, he realized, the future of their friendship was at stake.

So Michael made the only decision he could at that point: he accepted feelings that he wasn’t sure he could ever really return.

It was probably careless, his decision to let Ray take him out on a date, but Michael liked kissing Ray. He liked the funny feeling that fluttered in his chest when he studied Ray’s face too hard. He liked everything about Ray, but he didn’t know if he _loved_ him. Until then, until he knew for certain, Michael was just going to have fun with this. He and Ray would ride this out until the end of the line, maybe until Ray got bored and moved on – because that had happened once before, back when fewer things had been at stake.

At the end of this, Michael and Ray would patch things up and move on. Because it was summer and they had time. They were young and it was summer and the laziest days of the year were behind them with a few more precious weeks lying before them. Michael was going to make the most of this.

“Next time, laser tag,” he said. A firefly danced in front of his face. He offered his free hand as a perch for it to land on. The firefly landed and blinked languidly against the blanketing darkness.

Ray groaned, pulling his hand away from Michael’s, “God, but that requires like running and shit.”

Michael watched Ray pursue a cluster of fireflies with cupped hands and gracelessness unique to teenagers. He shook off the living light that had perched on his hand and scratched his head.

“Look, it’s either this or paintball and _trust me_ ,” he said with a haughty smirk, “You _don’t_ want to play paintball with me.”

Ray didn’t bother answering; he was going to do whatever Michael suggested. He had put an ungodly amount of faith in Michael, assumed that Michael knew his boundaries. He was only putting up a fuss because that was how they worked. It was a push and pull thing, and Michael didn’t remember exactly when they had become two forces who only functioned when they worked against each other.

Ray scooped up two fireflies at once. He cheered and scampered over to Michael to show him, the light of the bugs spilling between his fingers and lighting up his hands. When Ray stood in front of Michael, breathing heavy from running the short distance from one end of the lot to the other, Michael couldn’t help himself. He leaned in and kissed Ray’s forehead. Ray made a face and called him weird, but the dim light of the fireflies played across the blush on his cheeks. Michael smacked the back of his head with a laugh.

Michael liked Ray. Michael _loved_ Ray, to be honest, he just wasn’t sure he loved Ray quite like Ray loved him. But if it was for the sake of everything they had and would ever have again, Michael sure as hell was going to try.

They didn’t tell anyone at first, they didn’t feel a need to. But, as Michael had forgotten and was soon rudely reminded, they clearly underestimated how nosy their friends were. Not that it wasn’t entirely his fault that Gavin and Lindsay found out in the first place.

“I knew it! I bloody knew it!” Gavin crowed as he bounced in his seat, the stiff plastic of the pool chair squeaking in protest.

Michael could have kicked himself in that moment. He had forgotten that they didn’t know, that things had changed between him and Ray because the shift had been so seamless. He had kissed Ray on the cheek before doing a cannonball into the deep end of the pool. It was while he was underwater that he realized what he had done and when his head broke the surface, he was greeted by the triumphant squawking of one Gavin Free.

“Shut the fuck up, Gavin,” Michael said as he floated to the edge of the pool. Gavin was too busy squeaking with laughter to reply.

Ray was still standing in the same place where Michael had kissed him, wringing the hem of his tank top and no doubt chewing on his bottom lip. Michael couldn’t really see his face because he had given his glasses to Ray before launching himself into the pool, but he was almost certain that Ray was staring him down and trying to communicate telepathically just how much Michael had screwed up here.

“Wait, so how long has this been going on?” Lindsay said from her longue chair. Michael could hear her smile in her words and knew they were going to hear about this one for weeks.

Ray crouched down and gave Michael his glasses back, which he gratefully accepted before slipping them back on his face. He crossed his arms over the edge of the pool and Ray sat on the deck next to him, legs crossed and teeth still worrying his bottom lip.

Michael tried to look at Lindsay as casually as possible. “I dunno. Two weeks, I guess? It’s not that big a deal.”

Lindsay laughed. “Oh no, not a big deal at all. You just started dating your best friend and didn’t tell the rest of us,” she tightened her ponytail as she continued, “That’s cool. Whatever. Not like we’d placed bets on when you two would hook up or anything.”

Both Michael and Ray spluttered. Michael was still trying to find the words to convey just how offended he was, but Ray gained control of his tongue first. Not that Ray was the most eloquent person on the planet.

“Wait, what?”

Lindsay pushed her sunglasses up on her face. Michael couldn’t tell if she was looking at him or Ray. That was probably intentional.

“Yeah, well, JJ, Jack, and Geoff had bets place back when freshman year started. But then Ray and Hazel broke up and suddenly _everybody_ wanted in.”

Gavin’s hand shot up in the air. “Oh! Me! That was me! I knew you were full of shite when you said you and Ray had never done it!”

Michael ignored Gavin and stared directly into the reflective lenses of Lindsay’s sunglasses. “Are you fucking serious?”

Lindsay put her hands up in defense, “Hey, don’t get pissy at me. I didn’t put in a bid until Ray realized he was totally crushing hard on you again.”

Michael huffed and buried his face in the crook of his elbow. “Well this sucks.” His words were muffled by the damp skin of his arm but he was pretty sure he got his point across.

Lindsay scoffed and muttered something about Michael and his dramatics. Next to him, Michael could hear Ray humming in that way that meant he was mulling over his word choice.

“Does it suck though?” he stated thoughtfully. Michael peered up at him with smudged lenses. Ray was staring at the blue sky. “I mean, they were gonna find out anyway. Plus we’re happy, right? Let everybody crack jokes or whatever, I don’t give a shit.” Ray shrugged and looked down at Michael with a smile, “I’ve got you. Fuck everybody else.”

Well that was sappy as shit. Ray had a point: if their friends could put up with one another’s relationship antics, from Lindsay and Barbara’s weirdly suggestive conversations to Gavin and Dan’s sickeningly sweet banter, then what was one more couple? Bring on the awful jokes and potshots, Michael still had Ray’s companionship if nothing else.

“But, Ray,” Michael said with a smirk, “If you fuck everybody else, who am I supposed mess around with?”

Ray rolled his eyes, sun reflecting off of the lenses of his glasses. “Oh please, you and your right hand have made it this far together. You’ll be alright.”

Michael didn’t shoot back a reply, simply craned his neck up and pushed himself halfway out of the pool, daring Ray to meet him halfway. Ray ducked down and pressed his cracked lips to Michael’s. In the background, Michael could hear Gavin gagging exaggeratedly.

“Holy shit,” Lindsay sounded breathless, like she was realizing something life changing for the first time, “You two are _adorable_.”

No duh they were adorable, Michael thought as they pulled away and he lowered himself back into the pool, he was cute as shit on his own and Ray?

Ray had never looked happier. Michael had never seen Ray smile this bright before, not when he had finally passed eighth grade English after a rough semester or after they stood in a line in front of Gamestop for hours for a game release or even during his entire relationship with Hazel. Ray was a different kind of happy these days and Michael was flattered that he was the source of this newfound happiness.

When summer break had begun months ago, if someone had told Michael that he would wind up dating his best friend, he would have called them a dumbass and moved on. But now, lazing around poolside with friends and stealing chlorine kisses felt like a comfortable closure to the weeks of heat and summertime confessions.

The easy summer days ended on a high note and school started off as well as a semester could, with government approved lunches, blank spiral notebooks, and packed class schedules.

“Oh my God, Lindsay was right, you guys _are_ adorable. Gross.”

“Like you didn’t want this to happen.” Michael flicked a forkful of corn across the table, taking pride in his aim when more than half of it landed on Barbara’s tray. She frowned and plucked a few kernels out of her mashed potatoes.

“Well, yeah,” she shoved a spoonful of the potatoes in her mouth and pointed her utensil at Ray and Michael as she spoke around her food, “‘Cause I thought it would be funny. But now you guys are just cute and I can’t make fun of cute.”

“Bullshit you can’t,” Michael said as he loaded up his fork with more corn.

Barbara swallowed. She smacked her lips a few times before grinning with a shrug, “Yeah, but it’s not as fun. Plus Linds told me to be nice because it’s not cool to invite people on double dates only to immediately shit on them right after. Bad form or something.”

“Oh, so that’s still a thing?” Ray asked, struggling to open his carton of chocolate milk.

“Yup. Still a thing. The diner next to the bowling alley has a special on Fridays and their bread is really fucking good. Also Lindsay wants to share embarrassing stories from when she and Michael were dating.” Barbara took another bite of her mashed potatoes, “Not that Ray probably hasn’t already heard all of those stories since you two are attached at the hip or whatever.”

“Hell yeah they are and it’s weird,” Miles said as he approached the group. He had clearly only heard the tail end of the conversation yet decided to throw in his two cents anyway as he sat down next to Barbara.

Barbara raised an eyebrow and gave Miles a onceover. “Yeah, like you’re one to talk.”

Miles blinked owlishly at her, confusion etched across his features, “Wha–?” His own question was both interrupted and answered when Kerry plopped down next to him. A look of realization dawned on Miles’s face as he nodded slowly, “Ah. Right. Gotcha. Kerry’s different though! I mean look at him!”

Miles squished Kerry’s face, trying desperately to prove his point and justify his attachment to his boyfriend. Kerry didn’t appear phased by the contact in the least and kept a stern eye on Ray. His whole face was serious, as serious as a face as cute as his could be while being squeezed of course, and when he spoke it was with a severity that was dissonant with his usual personality.

“Is it true?”

Michael frowned. Ray ceased his fight against the stubborn cardboard of his milk carton and nervously chuckled, trying to dissipate the sudden tension that Kerry had introduced to the group, “Uh, what?”

Kerry sighed, his solemnity quickly washing away and replaced by a more familiar, eager energy. Pushing Miles’s hands away, Kerry clarified, “Gavin told Geoff who told Jack who told Joel who told me that you and Michael are officially dating. Is it true?”

“Oh,” Ray said with a more genuine laugh this time. He seemed relieved that that was all that Kerry was asking and Michael couldn’t blame him. The school rumor mill had spit out worse and more untrue things over the years. “Yeah, it’s true I guess.”

Kerry ignored Miles’s exaggerated gasp – clearly no one had told him yet – and continued to stare Ray down. The severity was gone, but Michael still felt that he was missing something here.

“And you didn’t drug him? Or blackmail him?”

“What? No!” Ray looked downright offended that Kerry would even suggest such a thing but Kerry didn’t look convinced.

“Did you give him long-term amnesia?”

“Dude, Kerry –”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing! Jesus!”

Michael didn’t appreciate being talked about like he wasn’t sitting right there. Seeing that Miles and Barbara weren’t doing anything to stop Kerry from giving Ray what was probably a totally understandable interrogation, Michael stepped in.

“He told me he was only friends with me for my body,” he grabbed Ray’s hand as he spoke, “I told him he could ride my dick if he walked me to class and held my books.”

Ray probably would have appreciated better backup, but he would just have to make do with Michael for now. Besides, Michael figured Ray’s brief embarrassment was worth it because he sure did enjoy the pretty flush that crawled up Ray’s neck like ivy.

“Goddammit, Michael.”

“You’re welcome,” Michael kissed Ray’s cheek and stood up from the table, “Speaking of class though, I’ve gotta go.”

Ray’s grip on Michael’s hand tightened and Michael found himself being pulled back down into his seat with a thud. He opened his mouth to complain, but a bread roll was stuffed between his parted lips instead. “Kay,” Ray said as he gave Michael’s hand one more squeeze, “Love you and all that shit.”

Michael took a bite out of the roll and swallowed down the dry bread. “Yeah,” he said around crumbs and carbs, “Same.”

“You guys actually look pretty good together,” Miles noted. He sounded as surprised as Barbara and Lindsay had at the revelation.

Barbara nodded in agreement, “Like you were made for each other or some shit.”

What was with their friends rooting for them to hook up only to be surprised at the outcome? Why were they all taken aback at the visual appeal of Michael and Ray together? They had been together for years, so how did slightly shifting their dynamic towards the romantic end of things make them so much more attractive to the people around them?

Kerry, forever Michael’s favorite and sometimes the voice of reason, raised an eyebrow and briefly analyzed Michael and Ray. “What do you mean? They’re exactly the same. They always hung out before and they always hang out now. Literally nothing’s changed.” Kerry stole a fry off of Miles’s tray and bit off the end while still staring at Michael and Ray, “God, don’t you ever get sick of each other?”

“Every second of every day,” Ray retorted. He smiled and rubbed small circles into the back of Michael’s hand.

“Who wouldn’t get sick of this loser?” Michael joked. He tugged his hand out of Ray’s grip and gave him an apologetic look, “I really need to go though. Gotta argue with my math teacher that I shouldn’t have to show my work so long as I get the right answer. _Again_.” God math teachers were a pain in Michael’s ass. “See you later, Ray.”

As Michael walked to class, books tucked under his arm and hand tingling in the absence of Ray’s touch, he couldn’t help but smile. This was fun. They were still casual, still every bit as close as they had been for the past few years, and it was easy. It was easy and the kisses were sweet and their jokes were just as dumb. Michael loved every bit of it – he was in love with the whole setup.

They had fallen into the boyfriend role pretty effortlessly. It felt like second nature, being together, and Michael enjoyed how comfortable everything was with Ray. There were no expectations from either of them; they knew exactly what they were getting into personality wise, bad habits wise.

Their jokes were the same, they just sometimes kissed after the punch line. They still spent an ungodly amount of time together, but oftentimes that time spent together involved them in various stages of undress. The line between friends and boyfriends had been blurred beyond recognition and they had become something not so easy to define. Because they weren’t platonic anymore, nor were they something quite romantic.

They were just “ _together_ ”.

Then things turned sour.

It was about halfway through fall semester when Michael started to get the feeling that they were bickering more. They had always butted heads, but it was always in good fun. It was playful, not personal. At least it used to be.

“Really? Really, Ray? That doesn’t make any goddamn sense,” Michael hissed, textbook laying forgotten on his desk. Study hall wasn’t important right now. What was important was his best friend’s compulsive behavior and how fucking nonsensical he could be. It was weird.

It was perfectly sensible to Ray though, who flushed and tripped over his words in his attempt to defend himself, “What the fuck are you – it makes perfect sense!”

No it didn’t. Not to Michael. In no way did rearranging the magazine rack in the front office for twenty minutes make any goddamn sense, not in this universe or the next, and Michael had already spent half the class period arguing with Ray about this fact. Ray had this weird thing about numbers and counting and things being put in a certain order and to this day Michael didn’t understand it. But to be fair, he wasn’t taking their current argument seriously. They were joking, Michael was at least, so he shut down any further debate from Ray in the same way he always did.

“God, shut the fuck up.”

Ray bristled, like actually visibly bristled. “Don’t tell me to shut up,” he snapped.

Michael rolled his eyes, spinning his pencil between his thumb and forefinger, “Whatever, Ray. Christ.”

“Don’t tell me to shut the fuck up.”

Michael paused. He looked at Ray, really studied the expression on his face. Ray was legitimately pissed at him for this. For inconsequential bullshit. Michael scoffed in disbelief. What did Ray expect? Did he want Michael to bend over backwards and agree with him on something he was completely wrong about?

Michael prodded Ray’s shoulder with the eraser end of his pencil to emphasize his next words. “Shut. The fuck. Up. Ray.”

If looks could kill, Michael would have been spluttering his last few breaths in that moment because Ray was so pissed. He was beyond pissed, spitting venom before he even opened his mouth.

“Don’t fucking tell me to fucking shut the fuck up, Michael.”

Michael pressed a finger to Ray’s lips. Something about the way Ray was genuinely getting frustrated over this was amusing. A voice in the back of his head said Ray deserved it, that it was payback for a previous argument they had, but Michael wasn’t petty and shook the thought from his mind.

“Shhh,” he shushed Ray with a finger still to his mouth, “You’re gonna hurt yourself there, man.”

Ray’s face turned an interesting shade of red and for a minute Michael was afraid that he was going to pop a vein or die of a stroke right in the middle of the classroom.

“You know what?” Ray stood up. The bell hadn’t rung yet, but he picked up his books anyway, “ _You_ shut up, asshole. And suck a dick while you’re at it.”

Then Ray turned around and walked out of the room. A few of the students who were seated around them watched him leave with mild interest. A few others glanced at Michael to see what he would do. Michael sighed and picked up his books. He followed after Ray, ignoring the teacher’s protests.

He caught up to him in the locker area. “Hey!” Michael’s voice bounced off of the metal lockers and Ray stopped walking. He didn’t turn around so Michael was forced to talk to his back. “The fuck’s your problem, man? I was joking!”

Ray spun around. The look on his face wasn’t as angry as when he had stormed out of class. It was sadder, desperate almost. “You’re always joking!” He threw his hands in the air and his voice went up several octaves, “You’re never serious for like one goddamn second and I’m constantly fighting you on shit!”

Oh that was rich coming from Ray of all people. The guy was serious maybe once a month and it was getting hard for Michael to tell when he was being sincere or not. Michael crossed his arms and watched Ray pace back and forth between the lockers. The worn soles of his checkered Vans slapped against the linoleum floor and the sound echoed in the empty hallway.

“Then stop fighting.” Ray’s pacing stopped. Michael continued talking with a shrug, “Just roll with it. You never had a problem with it before.”

Ray was too busy staring at the space between his toes to reply at first. Michael was about to head back to class, assumed whatever weird strain between them was resolved after a harmless exchange of a few harsh words, when Ray finally spoke up. Even in the silence of the hallway, his voice sounded small and unsure.

“You’re not supposed to be like this,” he cleared his throat before speaking a little louder, “You’re supposed to be understanding and caring and shit. You’re a sensitive asshole and you’re supposed to act like it.”

Michael raised an eyebrow. He dropped his arms to his sides and debated taking a step towards Ray. “But I never pull punches with you. I’m literally always a dick to you. That’s how we work. That’s how we’ve always been.”

Ray finally tore his eyes away from the interesting spot on the floor, bottom lip caught between his teeth. He looked genuinely surprised at Michael’s words.

“Have we?”

“I mean, yeah. Right?” Michael watched Ray’s face. Watched as his bushy eyebrows furrowed and something flickered across his features, dark and fleeting. Ray shrugged.

“Yeah. Guess you’re right. Guess I’m just being an idiot.” The dark look was long gone, replaced by that smile that Michael adored. “Wanna grab lunch?”

“It’s not our lunch hour yet, Ray,” Michael said with a scoff.

Apparently that wasn’t a good enough answer for Ray because he shoved his hands in his pockets and waggled his eyebrows. “You have a car don’t you?”

And just like that, Michael was already trying to figure out the closest place they could go to get food. He was like putty when it came to this kid.

“God, you’re gonna get me into major trouble one of these days.”

“Not my fault you can’t say no to me. I’m too cute.”

“Yeah whatever, too cute for your own good maybe. Fucking loser.”

Michael made his way towards the student parking lot, making sure to shove Ray’s shoulder as he passed, keys already jingling in his hand. They ended up ordering subs at the Jersey Mike’s down the road. They ate their sandwiches and talked about everything and nothing between bites, like their argument never happened, and Michael had a brief thought about how that was so typical for the two of them.

Then the fights got worse.

Michael wasn’t sure how or why, all he knew was that they started fighting more. It was about trivial shit too, pointless stuff that neither of them remembered after all had been said and done.

It was weird because they had fallen into synch so effortlessly. In theory, in Michael’s version of relationship theory at least, not much should have changed. He thought they could fall in love so fucking easily, but it turned out that falling in love with your best friend was hard. Changing the rules of a relationship was hard especially when Michael wasn’t perfect and was so quick to anger and Ray’s unsettling obsession with him from their tween years apparently hadn’t complete faded away over time.

In their shift from best friends to boyfriends, from together to _together_ , something had snapped out of place. They had fallen into a place similar to love, but were now somehow breaking apart twice as fast. For something that seemed to start so easily, it all fell apart pretty majestically.

They were in Ray’s kitchen once arguing about God knew what. At least, it had started out as arguing about something stupid, but then it turned into Ray listing off all the ways Michael was fucking up. It really pissed Michael off. He had the shortest fuse of everyone he knew and anyone, even Ray, was bound to burn down that fuse if given enough time.

But Ray kept fussing, oblivious to Michael digging crescent moons into the palm of his hands as he clenched his fists and bit his tongue. It was like Ray had built up this persona of who Michael would be as a boyfriend, like there was some difference between friendships and relationships, and Michael wasn’t living up to that expectation.

Well Ray could be dissatisfied all he wanted but, holy shit, Michael couldn’t _stand_ to be yelled at, even if it was by Ray. Before he knew it, Michael was screaming back. They were hateful things, heinous things, things about how Ray was the one at fault here, about how Ray was the one who faked a friendship for five years just so he could get the chance to fuck Michael, but he didn’t mean what he said. Honest.

Sure, he had occasionally wondered about Ray’s motives to hang out with him this long, but he was being intentionally hurtful, every terrible thought he’d ever had about his best friend had bubbled to the surface and tumbled from his lips. He was angry and had forfeited all rational thought. He just wanted to hurt Ray, break him to his very core because how dare _how dare_ Ray scream at him about…whatever it was Ray was screaming about.

All Michael could see was red. His voice had drowned out Ray’s at one point (or maybe Ray had finally stopped talking) but Michael didn’t notice because he was angry. He was angry and his hands weren’t clenched into fists anymore, weren’t at his sides anymore where he couldn’t hurt anyone.

Michael broke a plate. He didn’t remember picking it up. He didn’t remember the heavy, cold weight of ceramic in his hands before he chucked it at the wall, but it shattered right next to Ray’s head and _God_ the look on Ray’s face was so satisfying. Until the adrenaline drained from Michael’s veins like quicksilver and his mind was suddenly clear enough to realize what he had done.

Red faded from his vision and everything was suddenly put into perspective again. This was ridiculous. This whole fight was entirely pointless and Michael really was rethinking his choice to agree to this relationship. But Ray was still running on a hormone high, running on fear and anger, and picked up a glass.

“Oh, so you wanna break shit? Is that what we’re doing now?” He didn’t wait for an answer, didn’t wait for Michael to stutter out a shaky apology, and slammed the glass against the counter. It shattered in his hand, shards spraying across the counter in translucent arcs, and Michael watched in sober horror as bright red blood ran down Ray’s arm.

Pain is one of the body’s greatest sedatives. All traces of anger immediately washed from Ray’s face as he realized what he’d done. He inhaled sharply and in the wake of shattering glass, Ray’s gasp was the loudest thing Michael had ever heard and his heart seized up in a painful way.

“Sh-shit,” was the only thing Michael could hear himself say and he felt so stupid for not being able to say anything else.

Ray stared at his hand, at the bright red blood that beaded and ran in rivulets down his skin. He was in shock, Michael realized, and Michael wished he could remember what it was they were even fighting about in the first place because it couldn’t have been worth this.

They didn’t call 911. They should have, because this would definitely classify as an emergency, but they didn’t because Ray convinced Michael not to. His mother would be pissed and he didn’t want to hear her fuss about ambulance charges and hospital fees.

“Please, Michael,” Ray looked so pitiful standing there with half a roll of paper towels wrapped around his hand and soaked through with blood, “I know it’s fucked up to ask you for a favor after bitching at you for an hour, but _please_ –”

So Michael spent an afternoon picking glass shards out of Ray’s hand with tweezers and a flashlight. They patched up his hand as best they could with a department store first aid kit. Ray couldn’t flex his fingers all the way and made a joke about being thankful it wasn’t his masturbating hand that got fucked up. Michael pulled him close and kissed his forehead as an apology.

Two weeks later they were at it again.

Michael got pissed about something – he didn’t remember what it was because he had always been quick to anger – and threw a wild punch at Ray when he had told Michael to calm his tits. The punch landed with a sickening thud and Michael didn’t even feel bad. He split Ray’s lip wide open, he felt the blood flow slick under his knuckles, and it was a terribly satisfying moment. His anger wasn’t even 100% aimed at Ray, he was just irrationally mad these days. Ray took the hit and fought back. It was what he did. It was how they worked. One of them pushed and the other shoved back.

They were pushing themselves over a cliff and Michael couldn’t stop laughing over the sound of his teeth getting knocked in.

\---

“You need to stop,” Lindsay said to him one day. She was standing on his porch in her workout outfit but Michael didn’t bother to ask her how the softball off season was going. “Somebody’s going to get really fucking hurt and I can’t lose both of you. Neither of you idiots know when to call it quits, so I’m telling you to stop.”

Michael rolled his eyes and told her to get back to her Saturday morning run before closing the door in her face. He got a Snapchat four minutes later of Lindsay’s frowning face with the caption “i’m fucking serious michael”.  Michael sent her a pic of his middle finger and told her they were fine.

They weren’t fine, not really, but Michael wasn’t going to be the first to admit it. He had done his part in preventing this. He had told Ray that they could go out. He was not going to admit defeat this early on when he had told himself this was the best choice for them.

\---

Their last fight was the worst. Michael stormed in and punched Ray in the eye. He didn’t knock, didn’t say hi, didn’t announce his arrival in any way other than a fist to the face. The blow sent Ray reeling, it had to, but Michael didn’t give him a chance to recover and immediately put him in a chokehold. Ray clawed at Michael’s arm wrapped around his throat, but Michael kept his grip tight.

“You’re _exhausting_ ,” Michael growled. He tried to keep his voice low and under control, but his words only became more heated as he spoke, “You don’t know when to shut your goddamn mouth and it _sucks_. You know how many times I’ve had to clean up after you? And I don’t mean that literally because you’ve already got that covered.”

Michael, wrapped up in his grief and annoyance, unintentionally let his grip around Ray’s throat slip. Ray took the chance to duck his chin in the crook of Michael’s elbow and bit down. Hard. His teeth broke skin and the pain shot up Michael’s arm, forcing him to let go. Ray stumbled back a few paces, but he couldn’t put much space between them in the small space of his bedroom.

Michael wiped at the blood trickling down his forearm and smeared it across the front of Ray’s t-shirt, “Can’t find compassion for other people but at least you know how to scrub a goddamn tub, right? You pretty much outed Kerry to his mother for shits and giggles but, hey, at least the floor is vacuumed and the sheets are clean enough to fuck on.”

Ray didn’t respond, just scoffed and attempted to brush off Michael’s words and for some reason that pissed off Michael more than Ray yelling back. He wanted the bastard to care, to show some sort of remorse for the shit he did to people, to Michael, but he just stood in the middle of his eerily clean room looking like he was waiting for Michael to say something more important, something actually worth caring about. Michael threw another punch aimed straight at Ray’s nose, but Ray had gotten better at fighting since they started dating and managed to scramble out of the way. Michael’s fist connected with the wall hard enough to chip paint and dent plaster.

His anger seemed to finally be rattling Ray’s attempt at a cool exterior as he stared at the damaged wall with wide eyes. His back was pressed to his dresser and his chest was heaving like some sort of prey backed into a corner.

“You called Barbara a fucking slut at her holiday party last weekend!” Ray’s voice cracked at the end, thoroughly exasperated.

Michael shook out the stinging in his hand with a scoff, like that was a legitimate comeback even remotely related to the conversation, “I was joking. Babs knows that.”

Ray gave him an incredulous look, “Her grandmother was there, asshole!”

“You said it too!”

“Not loud enough for her family to hear!”

Michael didn’t think that he should have had to defend himself but Ray really wasn’t going to let this one go was he?

“Don’t change the subject, Ray!”

Ray seemed to have gotten his second wind, his chest rose and fell at a steadier pace than before. He smirked and Michael felt his blood run white hot. “What, don’t like being the center of attention?”

Things quickly devolved after that. Michael rushed Ray, yelling and not at all thinking and there was a blur of punching and screaming and biting after that. And then, just as suddenly, Ray slammed their mouths together so hard that their teeth clacked, fingers clawing at Michael’s back, trying to hold them together and keep them grounded in the same breath. Michael gripped Ray’s bony hips and returned the kiss with fire and vigor. He bit down on Ray’s bottom lip hard enough to draw blood and the taste of copper on his tongue was all too familiar these days.

When Michael woke up the morning after the fight, he was lying in bed with Ray in his room. A sliver of sunlight peered through the drapes. The place was in shambles. There was stuff strewn everywhere and things were broken and there was a new hole in the wall that was probably (definitely) coming out of his allowance.

Michael looked over at Ray. There was enough light in the room to see the darkening bruise on his face. It was right under his eye, right where Michael decked him when he stormed in last night. Michael fought the urge to run his thumb over it. He didn’t want to wake Ray. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

There were scratches all over Ray’s back, angry red welts that accusingly glared at Michael. Michael knew that if Ray turned over he would see the fading bruise right under his ribs, jaundice around the edges and a result of a previous fight a week ago. Over…something Michael couldn’t remember anymore. Something stupid probably.

Michael slipped out of bed and found his underwear in the mess on the floor. As he pulled it on, his eyes caught the garish marks on his arms. Ray always was a biter. Both during sex and during fights. These weren’t affectionate bite marks though, marked with arousal and want. These came from desperation. Michael figured he deserved them considering he _was_ trying to choke the ever living shit out of Ray at the time.

It was then that Michael made a decision. Plucking his pants and his shirt from the mess on the floor, Michael put them on, careful not to make too much noise. When he found one of his shoes, the one he threw at Ray’s head hours ago, there was something in it.

It was a tube of lipstick. It was in a color Michael vaguely remembered seeing Hazel wear to their eighth grade dance. Michael remembered it because that was the night that Ray showed up outside his window with his neck covered in lipstick kisses and gushing about how soft her boobs were.

Michael picked up the tube and put his shoes on. He tiptoed over to where Ray was still lying in bed, knocked out and snoring softly. He lifted Ray’s arm by the wrist and wrote slow, scarlet letters across his skin:

_we’re over_

Michael surveyed his handiwork. He tilted his head to one side, then the other. This was the best course of action. They weren’t good for each other anymore. Michael wasn’t certain they ever were good for each other, but that was something psychologists could argue about amongst themselves. Michael didn’t care if this whole thing was doomed to fail from the start; they had fun while it lasted.

The sunlight was casting soft light over most of the room by now. The birds in the tree next to the window begin to greet the day. It was time to leave.

Michael took a quick detour to the bathroom down the hall before he left. He peed, washed his hands, and tried to fix his hair in the mirror so that he wouldn’t look like a complete wreck when he got home. He was tugging at a particularly stubborn curl when he stopped. He leaned away from the mirror and looked at himself, actually looked at himself, for the first time all morning.

He had dark bags under his eyes. His bottom lip was split. There were splotchy bruises across his neck, bruises that used to be finger shaped not but a few hours ago. He looked terrible. He looked terrible and Ray looked worse.

Michael picked up the tube of lipstick from the counter, he had forgotten to leave it in Ray’s room and brought it with him to the bathroom, and pulled off the lid. He wrote in big scrawling letters that glinted a deep burgundy under the fluorescent lighting.

_sorry :(_

He hoped the frowny face conveyed just how sorry he was.

\---

They didn’t talk to each other for two weeks.

It was like they didn’t exist to one another anymore, like they had never known each other. If Michael didn’t get that weird tightening feeling in his chest every time he saw Ray in the halls, he would have marveled how amazing their acting skills were. Everything was bits and pieces between them now. Ray hadn’t bothered to call Michael or ask him why he ended things and Michael wondered if it was because he knew how fucked up they were when they were together.

Their breakup – if one could call it that considering they never verbally broke up outside of lipstick letters written on skin and glass – did not go unnoticed by their friends. Some of them asked questions, some of them didn’t and Michael felt like he was jumping through hoops when the subject of Ray came up. Which was a lot. Because they had been best friends. Best friends with the same group of friends since middle school who knew just about everything about each other.

Even though he was the one to initiate their breakup, Michael was the first one to reach out and suggest that he and Ray be friends again. He found himself standing on Ray’s front porch searching for the right words to fix all of this, to force things back to the way they were. Even in their relationship aftermath, Ray understood Michael’s fumbled sentences and jumbled feelings. He agreed to give it a chance. He even made a joke about how hard it was to clean lipstick off of mirrors and Michael felt at ease enough to crack a smile. He thought that maybe their friendship was salvageable after all.

It wasn’t. Everything felt weird and stilted and it wasn’t easy anymore. Their punchlines fell flat. Their words were carefully chosen. Their conversations were superficial at best. The casually friendly part of their relationship was gone, like Ray sapped all he wanted out of what they had and Michael had nothing left to give. Michael wondered if Ray had only stayed friends with him all these years in the vain hope that Michael would love Ray the way Ray loved him. Michael wondered if Ray ever loved him at all because he wasn’t so sure he ever loved Ray anymore.

They kissed each other again nearly a month later. It was in Barbara’s kitchen after a movie night with the gang. Everyone else was in the basement watching some pointless reality show and Michael had gotten up to grab another drink. He ran into Ray making a root beer float on the kitchen counter. They took a moment to stare at each other. It was the first time they had been alone like this since the breakup. Michael didn’t know what to say. Ray must not have known either because he licked vanilla ice cream off his fingers, padded over to Michael and leaned in for a kiss. Michael didn’t think about it, he just met Ray halfway.

It was cold, the kiss. Not Ray’s mouth, it was warm and wet like always, but his fingertips were freezing and Michael didn’t feeling a crackling heat between the two of them anymore.

They fucked that night. They stumbled back to Michael’s house, not bothering to tell their friends goodbye, and tiptoed to his room where they had the quietest and slowest sex in the history of awkward sexual encounters. But after all was said and done and they were lying in the dark together, it still felt right to Michael. Like this was the only thing they were good for for each other. Michael watched Ray watch the ceiling in the dark. He watched the way Ray’s profile looked in the lack of light, the way the sheets shifted as his chest rose and fell.

When Michael woke up the next morning, Ray was gone and his bedroom window was cracked open.

It became a regular thing, the sex. They didn’t really talk to each other anymore, but on particularly lonely nights, Michael could expect a rapping at his window and Ray would climb in, shedding his clothes as he made his way to Michael’s bed without so much as a hi. They liked it this way. It was easier this way. Cleaning up the mess afterwards was always easier because there were so few pieces to pick up now. No social cues or fumbled conversations or emotional intimacy. Everything was physical and good and great and they didn’t argue anymore. They didn’t really talk anymore.

They talked to each other for the first time in months, at Gavin’s graduation party. It started with a simple “’Sup?” from Michael. Ray nodded his head and made room on the veranda. They stood in silence, staring out at nothing together. Then Michael made a joke and Ray laughed, just full on guffawing and crying with laughter. It wasn’t even that funny, but soon they were both howling at something undeniably not hilarious because something broke between them so that in that moment they could slip back into place.

They wiped the tears from their eyes and looked at each other. Good, surveying looks that spanned years of friendship and relationships and fucked-up-ships. They didn’t know where they were going from here, whether they were friends again or back at step one with strangers, but when Michael extended his hand, Ray shook it.

“I miss you,” Michael said.

“I love you,” Ray said.

And there was a good chance that they were going to do this all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely satisfied with the pacing of this fic and the end is rushed and sloppy and lacking, but at least it's done, yeah?
> 
> I experimented with a few things writing and planning-wise that I probably won't be doing again, but I might come back and redo this at a later date. I really like the premise and I want to explore everyone's relationships here a little more, but the resulting fic would be 2-3 times longer than this.
> 
> I had fun doing this project though! I learned something new and finally checked this WIP off of my to do list! Thanks for reading!!


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